Thread: BBC: Land Rover driven through floods - Irresponsible

Originally Posted by WhiteD3

Agree.....he was irresponsible.

Depends on your definition of irresponsible then. For me, irresponsible would have been someone trying to cross the same depth of water in a Kia - Land Rover driver in this case was hailed a hero.

Originally Posted by superquag

Wonder what British LR forums (if any...) think of it all.

Can't speak for British forums, but when I lived in Ireland I spent eight years with mountain rescue, and plenty more before that going out with my old man as part of the emergency services, both using Land Rovers as work/rescue vehicles and both involving the police. In both instances the police were happy to hand over responsibility as soon as the bitumen ended and there was a chance of getting feet wet. On plenty of occasions the police were happy to point towards a car stranded in the floods and ask us to "volunteer" to go in with the Land Rover and pull them out, or point up towards the mountains and send us up there. I've trained alongside rescue teams in the UK and it's the same there. The fact that they are going so far as to issue a press release over this video points to somewhat of a double standard.

From what I can see, they guy was having a bit of fun in his Land Rover, nothing more. Maybe he went in blind, maybe he'd been there for a bit and had seen a few tractors and trailers go through - that's often how I've judged a flooded road at home to be passable or not. I wonder what the response would be if an AULRO member posted a youtube video of a river crossing up in Cape York peninsula, and the cops here reacted in the same way?

It wasn't too deep.
It wasn't flowing.
The driver seemed calm, experienced.
He drove at a steady pace not overtaking the bow wave (unlike that idiot policeman)

(No wonder they get stuck.)

The depth was known. The road clearly defined by the white posts.

In my limited experience, I don't see what the problem is?

I didn't read anyone commenting how irresponsible the truck driver was.

Originally Posted by mike_ie

Depends on your definition of irresponsible then. For me, irresponsible would have been someone trying to cross the same depth of water in a Kia - Land Rover driver in this case was hailed a hero.

?

That is so.... sad....

I'd say the irresponsible bit is if it did go wrong and emergency services were diverted away from people who needed their help but didn't intentionally place themselves at risk. He was in the water for 5 minutes and it could have easily risen further in that time. I have a friend who just watched his house get flooded in Wales last week in 20 minutes....

Hmmm, for the last eight years I've either had to drive through a flooded river, or for the last five years a flooded creek just to get in or out of home when it rains, as did/do the neighbours.

It's that typical city/country disconnect in the first world, what's normal behaviour/conditions in one takes on an almost alien perspective in the other.

That's not deep - do a You Tube search "Fire truck drives through Aussie flood."

Yeah! it's amazing what one can do if they don't own the vehicle like the police Disco and the Firies truck

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